Chapter 6 - Locker 318
The answer was not on the recorder.
Chloe played the file again anyway.
Then again.
Each time Leo’s voice ended at the same place.
“Gabriel Costello is not the man I’m afraid of.”
Static.
Silence.
Nothing after.
Gabriel stood by the window with his arms folded.
Beatrice sat beside Chloe.
Anthony had taken the Harbor vehicle log into the dining room to call someone he trusted.
Chloe hated that phrase now.
Someone he trusted.
Everyone in Gabriel’s world seemed to have a different definition of trust.
Beatrice touched Chloe’s forearm.
Leo always left backups.
Chloe looked at her.
“How do you know?”
He told me once that computers fail and people lie.
Chloe almost smiled.
“That sounds exactly like him.”
She turned the recorder over.
There was a piece of masking tape stuck to the back.
Three numbers were written in faded black ink.
318.
Chloe’s breath caught.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
She showed him.
His expression sharpened.
“Does that mean anything?”
Chloe thought about Leo’s habits.
His apartment number had been 4B.
His birthday was in March.
His phone password had been absurdly long because he distrusted easy numbers.
Then she remembered the old East Station lockers.
Leo used them when he volunteered downtown because he hated carrying his backpack through the crowded community center.
“Maybe.”
Gabriel pushed away from the window.
“Where?”
“East Station.”
He reached for his coat.
Chloe did not move.
“You are not coming.”
Gabriel stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“If Leo left something there, I’m getting it.”
“Yes.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
Chloe stood.
“You keep saying that word like it ends conversations.”
“In my experience, it usually does.”
“Then your experience needs work.”
Beatrice raised one hand.
Children.
Both of them looked at her.
She pointed at Gabriel.
Go with her.
Then she pointed at Chloe.
Let him.
Chloe opened her mouth.
Beatrice narrowed her eyes.
Chloe closed it.
Gabriel looked almost satisfied.
Beatrice signed one more sentence.
And stop smiling, Gabriel.
His face became neutral immediately.
Twenty minutes later, Chloe sat in the back of a black SUV beside Gabriel.
Anthony drove.
No one spoke for the first six blocks.
Rain had started.
Of course it had.
Leo had died in rain.
Chloe watched water move across the window and tried not to think about twisted metal.
Gabriel noticed her hands tightening in her lap.
“You can tell us to stop.”
“No.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
He looked out the opposite window.
“My father used to say stubborn people live longer.”
Chloe stared at him.
“My brother was stubborn.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked away.
“You didn’t kill him.”
“I’m not certain someone in my family didn’t.”
That was worse.
East Station was nearly empty after midnight.
A custodian pushed a yellow mop bucket along the far wall.
Two transit officers stood near the turnstiles.
The old lockers occupied a narrow corridor behind the ticket machines.
Most had been converted to electronic access years earlier.
Locker 318 still had a metal key slot.
Chloe stared at it.
“No key.”
Gabriel looked at Anthony.
Anthony shook his head.
“Do not look at me.”
“I am not breaking into a transit locker in front of two police officers.”
Chloe searched her bag.
Then she remembered the transit card.
She pulled it from her pocket.
The cracked corner looked thicker than she remembered.
Her fingernail caught on the tape Leo had wrapped around it.
She peeled it back.
A tiny brass key slid into her palm.
Chloe laughed once.
The sound broke halfway through.
“He hid it in the card.”
Gabriel looked at the key.
“He expected someone to return that card to you.”
“No.”
Chloe swallowed.
“He expected me to find it among his things.”
“Then whoever mailed it made a mistake.”
Anthony looked down the corridor.
“Or wanted her to open the locker.”
The thought chilled all three of them.
Gabriel stepped closer to Chloe.
“We can leave.”
She inserted the key.
“No.”
The lock opened with a soft metallic click.
Inside was a canvas messenger bag.
Leo’s bag.
Chloe recognized the frayed strap.
She pulled it out.
A notebook rested inside.
So did a small video camera, two flash drives, and a sealed envelope with her name written across the front.
Chloe’s vision blurred.
She sat on the narrow bench beneath the lockers.
Gabriel remained standing.
Anthony turned his back to give her privacy while still watching the corridor.
Chloe opened the envelope.
The letter inside was written in Leo’s messy block handwriting.
Chlo,
If you are reading this, I either finally became organized or something went very wrong.
Chloe made a sound that was almost a laugh.
Leo continued.
You will want to fix it yourself.
Do not.
You will want to trust anyone who says they can explain everything.
Do not.
Start with the camera.
And remember what Mom used to tell us.
Watch the hands when the mouth lies.
Love you.
Leo.
Chloe pressed the page to her lips.
Gabriel looked away.
After a moment, she picked up the camera.
The battery still held a charge.
There were four files.
The first showed a dock at night.
The second showed trucks entering a warehouse.
The third was black for several seconds before a man’s voice said, “Turn that off.”
The fourth showed Leo sitting in his apartment.
He was signing directly at the camera.
Chloe’s hands began to shake before she translated the first sentence.
If Chloe sees this, I am sorry.
Gabriel crouched beside her.
“What is he saying?”
Chloe could barely answer.
“He’s talking to me.”
Leo continued signing.
Samuel Ortega found records proving money was being moved through Harbor Food Logistics.
The theft is not the dangerous part.
The dangerous part is what the money pays for.
Leo looked off camera.
Then back.
I thought Gabriel Costello was behind it.
I was wrong.
Gabriel went still.
Chloe kept watching.
Leo’s fingers moved faster.
Gabriel is ruthless, but he is not hiding this.
He does not know.
The man hiding it is beside him every day.
Chloe held her breath.
Leo signed the name.
Luca.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Anthony turned around.
“What?”
Chloe looked at him.
“Leo says Luca was stealing through Harbor Food.”
Anthony swore softly.
The video continued.
Luca met Samuel twice.
The second time Samuel disappeared.
I found the truck records.
Vehicle 47B is being used to move cash and documents between warehouses.
I copied everything I could.
Then Leo leaned closer to the camera.
His expression changed.
Chloe recognized fear in her brother’s face.
Real fear.
Not the exaggerated expression he used when she made him taste her cooking.
Not the teasing fear he used in horror movies.
This was different.
Someone came to my apartment today.
He knew Chloe’s work schedule.
He knew Beatrice had spoken to me.
He knew about Samuel.
He said if I stopped asking questions, my sister would stay safe.
Chloe’s stomach turned.
Gabriel’s face went hard.
Leo signed one final sentence.
If I die, Luca did not do it alone.
The video ended.
Chloe stared at the black screen.
Anthony spoke first.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel stood slowly.
“It means Luca had help.”
A sound came from the end of the corridor.
Metal scraping metal.
Anthony turned.
One of the locker doors was swinging.
No one stood beside it.
Then the station lights went out.
Chloe’s heart stopped.
Gabriel grabbed her hand.
“Stay behind me.”
A red emergency light flickered on.
Footsteps moved quickly toward them.
Anthony drew his weapon but kept it pointed down.
“Show yourself.”
Nobody answered.
A figure appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Then another.
Gabriel pushed Chloe toward the exit behind the lockers.
“Move.”
She clutched Leo’s bag against her chest.
A man lunged from the side passage.
Anthony intercepted him.
The two crashed into the metal lockers.
Gabriel pulled Chloe through the service door.
They ran into the rain behind the station.
A black sedan accelerated from the curb.
Its headlights swung toward them.
Gabriel shoved Chloe behind a concrete column.
The sedan jumped the curb.
Metal screamed against stone.
Then it sped away.
Chloe was pressed against Gabriel’s chest.
His hand covered the back of her head.
For one second neither of them moved.
Then Anthony burst through the service door.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
“I lost the second one.”
Gabriel looked toward the disappearing taillights.
Chloe held up Leo’s bag.
“They didn’t get it.”
Gabriel looked down at her.
“No.”
His expression was grim.
“But now they know we have it.”
Chloe looked at the dark station behind them.
The terror she felt should have made her stop.
Instead it did something worse.
It made her angry.
Leo had been afraid for her two years earlier.
He had died carrying a secret meant to keep her safe.
Someone had spent two years assuming that secret would stay buried.
Chloe tightened her grip on the messenger bag.
The locker smelled like rust, dust, and the stale river air that seeped through the terminal walls.
Chloe held Leo’s notebook against her chest.
For two years, grief had trained her to think of her brother as the person who had been taken.
The pages forced her to remember the person he had been before that.
Methodical.
Annoyingly patient.
Braver than he ever admitted.
He had numbered license plates.
He had drawn loading-bay diagrams.
He had written dates beside names Chloe did not recognize.
And in the margin of one page he had written a sentence she could hear in his voice.
People count on you getting tired before they get caught.
Chloe closed her eyes.
Whoever had frightened him had expected the Bennett family to break quietly after his death.
“They were wrong.”
Gabriel heard her.
“About what?”
She looked at him.
May you like
“About me.”
And somewhere across the city, Luca Costello’s phone began to ring.
